One of the major problems in commercializing the fuel cells technology is generating the hydrogen fuel to run the fuel cell. Currently high temperature processes are used to break down materials to create the hydrogen fuel. These thermal processes tend to complicate the system design and reduce the overall fuel cell efficiency. Furthermore, the cost of the raw fuel (that is before reducing it to yield the hydrogen) is significant in determining the cost of the energy produced by the fuel cell.
Currently high temperature processes are used to break down material to create the hydrogen fuel. There are many potential fuel sources that are rich in hydrogen that available at very little cost and in some cases at no cost at all. These candidate fuels are considered to be waste. Not only do they have low cost potential, they cost the owners considerable money to dispose of them. Typical categories of potential fuel sources are animal waste, food waste, organic waste such as solvents, medical waste, landfill runoff, industrial waste, etc. Food waste is used in the following section to illustrate the impact on the community of these various waste materials.
Food waste is a growing problem for today's technological society. The food waste generated by a large segment of our agricultural sector is an increasing burden on these companies as well as the whole country in general. The magnitude of this growing problem can be seen from the amount of food available for human consumption in 1995 was 356 billion pounds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 27% or 96 billion pounds were lost as food waste at retail, consumer and food service levels. In addition to this food waste, an equally large amount of food waste is generated in the food processing industry.
Considerable researches in the fields of public health, safety and environmental protection have raised the level of concern relative to the impact of this waste on our society. This has lead to the definition of this waste being expanded in its coverage of materials that must be handled in a controlled and accountable manner.
The cost of disposing of food waste in the U.S. is a multi-billion dollar per year industry. The capital cost of the equipment required is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. All businesses, industrial companies, and institutions that generate and handle this category of waste must provide safe, effective and inexpensive disposal of the waste. In recent years there has been increasing concern over the disposal of food waste. The number of materials that need to be controlled has continued to increase. Furthermore, the handling, storing, and transporting of the waste has continued to increase in cost. The liability for the consequences of the disposal of this waste is a major concern for all concerned. The liability of the users does not end with the transfer of control of these materials to disposal companies for future problems they may cause.
The dominant methodologies used today generally can be categorized as thermal decomposition, long-term storage, or landfills methods.
The most frequently used thermal destruction techniques are various forms of incineration. All of these techniques have the potential to produce volatile organics that have serious health and environmental consequences.
In the case of long-term storage, this method is viewed as delaying the solving of the problem and in fact actually increases the degree of the problem in the future. The dumping in landfills has considerable risk for the users of these materials. Many companies build ‘holding ponds’ to store the food waste for an extended period of time but these ponds are a potential serious threat to the public health and safety. If they develop leaks or overflow, the waste can enter the ground water posing a serious environmental problem. ‘Holding ponds’ may become a breeding area for organisms. The organisms produced in these ponds may result in serious health consequences. Therefore, the user community has an immediate need to develop and incorporate improved methods for the handling of all types and form of food wastes.
The methodology of this patent provides for the immediate destruction of these waste materials as close to the source as possible thus avoiding the risk of expanding the exposure time or area to these materials. The destruction technology in this patent converts these waste materials into benign natural components such as carbon dioxide, water, and small amounts of inorganic salts. During the destruction of the materials the MEO process produces hydrogen and oxygen in a clean and efficient manner. Thus, the MEO process is used to dispose of unwanted or unneeded materials to produce hydrogen fuel for use in; a) a fuel cell to produce electrical energy in an environmentally safe and economically efficient manner; or b) in a combustion process to generate thermal energy for example a water heater in an environmentally safe and economically efficient manner.